4 Mistakes That Can Keep You From a Better Life

Stop doing these things because they keep taking your progress out from under you. Stay tuned.

You know, it's no surprise that we all have to face a certain set of hurdles and roadblocks, if you will, in actually getting breakthrough. Nobody gets breakthrough without actually physically breaking through some kind of barrier. And never more has that been true than each and every one of our lives. As we are trying to figure out how to build a life we actually love, one we can appreciate, one we can be proud of, one we can respect and love. When it comes down to it, you've got to decide right now how badly you want it. The reason is, is because there are four main mistakes that I see that keep taking progress out from other people that I genuinely care about. For example, there's a young lady that I've been counseling and coaching now for a little while, right? She has been making massive progress Six, eight months in, she's been killing it, dude. She's got her finances under control. She's got. She has her relationships under control, but she still has one major blind spot. And that blind spot snuck up on her and bit her in the tush. Because of a family relationship. You see, if you grew up in a toxic environment or a very difficult environment, you're already going to be predisposed to certain, well, let's call it button pushing, so to speak. And as someone pushes your button, you have in that moment to take charge or to let your emotions come rampant over top of you. Which one do you think is going to give you the better outcome? Taking charge, of course. However, as you're learning to break through, one of the things that you've got to face is this button pushing kind of thing. And if someone knows how to push your buttons, you have to get to where that button doesn't work anymore. In this particular circumstance, this got so difficult and so bad that she almost released her entire progress that she made the entire first year because unfortunately, she got into an altercation with one of her family members. One of her family members who wasn't coming at it from a healed state. One of her family members that was causing a lot of problems. Little did you know, the call came, hey, this happened. I don't know what to do now. I've got all this kind of drama that I've got to work on. I got to go to court. Dah, dah, dah, dah. This is the type of stuff that you can avoid as long as you play the game smart. People like to say, well, they made me do it. Well, if it wasn't for them, then it was for. And it doesn't work like that. You control your attitudes, your actions and your emotions all the time. It's up to you to understand whether or not you're reacting or responding. And I've done other videos in the past about responding. Why it makes sense to solve logical problems with logic and emotional problems with emotions. Because you can't solve a logical problem with an emotional. You can't solve an emotional problem with logic. There are four specific mistakes that I see people making all the time. And the first one we're going to jump into is the one that just bit this young lady, and that is this. Building a life without building yourself. So much of life is understanding where your triggers lie. That way, when you identify what those triggers are, you're able to put something in place that either bypasses the trigger or removes the trigger entirely. When you go to build yourself, you're going to be focused on doing videos like this. You're going to be focused on getting mentorship. You're going to be focused on getting consistent coaching. You're going to be focused on reading the right books video, listening to the podcast, making sure you're taking the time to watch movies and TV shows that only bring you forward and don't hold you back. If you're used to a toxic environment and you're still watching the TV shows where people are taking advantage of each other all the time, then guess what, that is going to have a certain appeal to you. You're going to get lost in the drama cycle. That's just one example of how not building yourself properly can equate to not building a life you love. You've got to have a consistent growth mindset when it comes down to actually creating progress. You've got to be looking for anything and everything that you can use right now to build any area of your life at any given time, from your financial life to relational life, your spiritual life, your emotional life, all and so on and so forth. Make sure you take the time to spend time building you on a regular basis. That way, when the triggers and the traumas and all the button pushing comes, you're ready and you don't fall for the trap. The next mistake that I see people doing all the time is living by their past.

Living by their past. They're so focused on where they've been that they lose sight of where it is they want to go. They're so focused on the relationships they had and the toxicity and stuff that was on this particular area. That they refused to identify those roadblocks, those defense mechanisms, those stumbling blocks, if you will, and they refuse to work on them because this feels comfortable and normal.

Sometimes breaking through that weird comfort zone of the new normal makes more sense than trying to hold on to the past. The reality is you cannot stand in your past and your present at the same time, no more than you can stand in your present and your future at the same time. So you have to eliminate the past. You have to operate in the present, and you have to plan for the future. And as you do that, you'll begin to build a life you love in a way that you love in a way that makes sense to you. And eventually you will actually have what I like to refer to as a testimony about how far you've come and where you've come from and now, where you are now, and all the things you learned in the middle. The only way you get there is to understand that you have to get out of your past, move into your present, learn what you need to know, develop what you need to develop and grow how you need to grow to move you towards your future. And then you'll have this scenario where now you have a testimony that was polished by the test, that now allows you to take steps forward and help other people do the same thing. All right, mistake number three, operating in someone else's expectation. One of the biggest mistakes I see people doing right now, even in 2020, even in a Covid environment, is they're still trying to cater to someone else's expectation. What I mean by that is if you are living your life because someone else is forcing you or implying or influencing you to live it that way, whether it be a spouse, whether it be an employer, whether it be a parent, then you are doing yourself a disservice. How can you ever live a life you love when you're living someone else's life? That's why you've got to be strong in this. You've got to get crystal clear on what life it is you want to have, what your purpose is, what your passion is, what the marketplace you need to operate in, what kind of hobbies you need. All of these types of things are powerful tools that help you leverage past these moments where all of a sudden you're not living someone else's life, you're living your own life. If you have a natural gift to speak, you got a natural gift to create, then go be a speaker that creates or creator that speaks. If you have a natural gift to heal people, then go into the doctor field. If you have a natural innate talent to become an entertainer, then go entertain. The longer you're living someone else's life, the longer it's going to take you to discover what your real life is. Which means that most people who are living someone else's life are also experiencing anxiety and depression on a regular basis because they're being inauthentic. And to me, that pain, if you will, that pain is there to tell you that something needs to change. So ask yourself, am I experiencing pain and frustration in this specific area? And if the answer is yes, the next question is, what needs to change? Alright, fourth mistake here. This is an important one and that is not pushing through the pain. You just heard me talk about how this testimony shaped up, how you create the test and then you can share about it, right? I just did. That little journey happens over and over and over and over and over again if you do the work. What most people don't tell you is to go from here to over here requires a lot of resilience, a lot of passion, a lot of grit, a lot of determination, and a lot of not giving up. Don't give up.

You're worth it. Your future is worth it. Your future spouse, your future kids, your future life. You're traveling, you're speaking. Whatever your thing is, you're worth it. And whether or not you actually go after it is totally up to you.

I am where I am today. Not because I'm special, not because I know anything differently than anybody else. I just choose to learn, I choose to grow and I choose to fight. So why don't you fight? Why don't you take it to the next level? I know you can.

Look, your pain will literally become part of of the prize, so to speak. I think his name, Eric Thomas, said it best. Your pain equals your prize. There's always treasure in the trash. There's all kinds of little one liners that I could give you all day long, which does nothing but intensify this sentence. You've got to push through your pain, your discomfort, the things that you don't feel like are working and stuff like that. Put your head down and get your butt to work.

And as a result, you end up with a life you love. I hope you enjoyed that video and if you did, you're absolutely going to love this video right here. Check it out. One of the most difficult transitions I've had to face as a leader is trying to balance the need to be firm and fair, but also listen and build trust through empathy. Why? Because as a leader, you feel like, okay, well, somebody might be taking advantage of me or I might be a little too harsh.